Portland Uprising History

Hope you guys dont mind me writing this. I figure I may be the one to do it best. Anyway, delete or re do it in whatever way you need to i suppose.

Here it goes,
Long long ago in a super wet place called the northwest, a team called Nurv was playing in what was called the Pan Am series......some of you have no clue what this is (it was later called the XPSL). This team Nurv later had a falling out (dont worry, this all gets cleaned up years in the future) and half of the team broke away and in November of 2004 formed Uprising Nation and Blacklist Video Productions. This began in a small ghetto backyard later named the Uprising Training Grounds. Check out www.Blacklistvideo.com the videos are still up.

Uprising played locally doing very well in the open division and getting a lot of recognition through the marketing tactics of Blacklist Video. Evening beating 808 Productions in a PBNation Film fest. In 2006, after a year of success locally, some changes came our way. Chris Dargan was moving to California for school, Race Jones broke his coller bone in a nasty way, Bo Bowers had a baby, and some others where burning out or running out of money.

2007

Battle Ground paintball field opened and began forming a team called Amp'd. A second run remake of an even older team. After a few months of fighting through our slowly dwindling roster we decided to merge who was left with team Amp'd and play NPPL Division 1. During this time Phil Veatch (myself) also went on to play Pro NXL with the Portland Naughty Dogs.

Most of 2006 was riddled with fights and burnout, especially for myself, which ended in my exit from both the Naughty Dogs and Amp'd
With a short hiatus I was able to gather my composure and rejoin Amp'd with the addition of......Tommy Tucker! Now we are getting somewhere familiar to all you new to all this.
(whats funny is tommy and I first met when I sold him an entry fee to an XPSL event that we (Uprising) won at one or our events, which he then entered his PBRack team into, small world)

Now for whoever is lost, this is THE YEAR 2007.
Recap - we are now all on team amp'd.
Half of the season goes by and we are headed right down the road we where at the end of 2006. Meanwhile Tommy was still running his PBRack team and decided to enter them into the San Bernardino XPSL, which I went to with them.
Enter -
Franky Avent
Ryan (Roho) Tucker
Fez (you dirty Egyptian)

Here is the catch though, We were also supposed to ref an event for Amp'd that weekend, and upon our departure, we basically quit Amp'd. This same weekend, both Drew Elliott and Alex Lightman also quite Amp'd leaving the team very weak, sickly and in major debt. The owner unfortunately later became no longer affiliated with Battle Ground Paintball and hasn't been seen since (this happens in paintball a lot it seems).

Anyway, we end up playing the XPSL and getting 4th or something like that, but had so much fun that decided to reform Uprising. With the demise of amp'd this basically allowed us to pick who we wanted and move forward under our own terms (read the philosophy at the end).
This brings a new roster into play
Phil Veatch
Tommy Tucker
Ryan Tucker
Chris Story
Terry Stolmeier
Franky Avent -......well Franky, we atleast TRIED to have you on the team, the whole living in SLC didnt help much....
Nick Collins
Alex Lightman
Jared Demcheck

This is the roster that played Semi Pro at the end of the 2007 NPPL Season

2008
Unable to secure any real long term funding moving forward, we were basically back to square one with no money. I ended up going away to school and everybody else sort of got on to whatever team they could whenever they could. Some of which are now playing pro.

The only story past this point that I really know is my own, and mine doesn't even really matter because I am not currently playing with the team (3000 miles is a bit to drive every weekend). I moved to Phoenix and started playing with Scottsdale Elevation, but if i where still around the northwest you better bet you would see me grinding hard with these guys.

I encourage everyone to post up their history, especially how they came to Uprising. If you aren't familiar with the original philosophy, here it is, its what the team was formed on and what we thrived by. I hope that all the new blood can relate somehow.

"So most of you guys are probably wondering, who the hell is "Uprising Nation", and why are they spreading around like a disease!? Well, we are a group of guys that got fed up with the system we were in. We were sick of giving up all our prizes, sick of conforming to one individuals ideas, sick of following someone else’s dream of being a superstar, sick of following someone who couldn’t understand the importance of the team as a whole. We aren’t out to take it in the *** from the first person who wants to give us a shinny new nickel. We aren’t out to make the self appointed dick head team politicians famous. We are a team of players for the players. Our goal is to redefine the old ideas of how paintball should be played, even if it is just among a few. We aren’t going to be told to play a certain position, and we aren't going to be told to play a certain way. We are playing because we love it, and we are playing with the same collective idea that paintball is played by the players."

I look forward to meeting all you new guys that I haven't met yet in HB, and im excited to see how the team does!

If i forgot anyone let me know and I can edit this......its been a while

I know, a pretty anti-climactic ending....but thanks to Tommy, the uprising isn't over and there can be an even longer history soon.

OH, and back to Nurv. We all became friends again and many of us have played and guested back with the team in the middle of this whole timeline......

I remember Uprising and Uprising Kids runnin **** in the NW. Free spray painted gear was what first turned me on to you guys, then the Blacklist videos, then the rest was history. Always been a cool group of guys, always a pleasure to ball with the crew, happy to see we kept the name alive.

I met Uprising while they were playing for a local store called Pacific Paintball Supply before that Bo and Drew worked at and Bo's father owned. I think I originally met Phil at an Exile practice when he was just a wee pup! Before Race, Bo, Drew, Phil and Scotty played on Nurv...

Remember playing out at Competitive Edge in Hillsboro? God I loved that. Miss you guys!
- Hammer

Its great to see you guys out there again. Over the years of playing in the northwest I have had my *** handed to me plenty of times playing uprising at local events...Its great to see a team as solid as this get to where they should be